World’s fastest supercomputers: Fugaku is still No. 1 at 3X the speed of No. 2

The latest semiannual TOP500 list of the world's fastest supercomputers is topped by Fugaku, the same machine that won in June. Built by Fujitsu, Fugaku is three times as fast as its nearest rival.TOP500 says that competition for its list seems to be lessening, with the full list of 500 systems having the fewest number of new entries since the organization started its tracking. The list is updated every June and November and has tracked the development of supercomputer performance and architecture since 1993. Nevertheless, two brand new systems managed to break into the top 10 list on their first try.To read this article in full, please click here

The Many Facets Of Hybrid Supercomputing As Exascale Dawns

There may not be a lot of new systems on the November 2020 edition of the Top500 rankings of supercomputers, but there has been a bunch of upgrades and system tunings of machines that have been recently added, expanding their performance, as well as a handful of new machines that are interesting in their own right.

The Many Facets Of Hybrid Supercomputing As Exascale Dawns was written by Timothy Prickett Morgan at The Next Platform.

Cisco gains container security with Banzai Cloud buy

In its second cloud-native technology acquisition in as many months, Cisco is buying container security firm Banzai Cloud for an undisclosed amount.Founded in 2017, Banzai is known for developing Kubernetes-based cloud application development and security technologies. It will become part of Cisco's Emerging Technologies and Incubation group, where the company brews new projects for cloud-native networking, security and edge computing environments. READ MORE: Gartner's top 9 strategic technology trends for 2021To read this article in full, please click here

Cisco gains container security with Banzai Cloud buy

In its second cloud-native technology acquisition in as many months, Cisco is buying container security firm Banzai Cloud for an undisclosed amount.Founded in 2017, Banzai is known for developing Kubernetes-based cloud application development and security technologies. It will become part of Cisco's Emerging Technologies and Incubation group, where the company brews new projects for cloud-native networking, security and edge computing environments. READ MORE: Gartner's top 9 strategic technology trends for 2021To read this article in full, please click here

Workers KV – free to try, with increased limits!

Workers KV - free to try, with increased limits!
Workers KV - free to try, with increased limits!

In May 2019, we launched Workers KV, letting developers store key-value data and make that data globally accessible from Workers running in Cloudflare’s over 200 data centers.

Today, we’re announcing a Free Tier for Workers KV that opens up global, low-latency data storage to every developer on the Workers platform. Additionally, to expand Workers KV’s use cases even further, we’re also raising the maximum value size from 10 MB to 25 MB. You can now write an application that serves larger static files directly or JSON blobs directly from KV.

Together with our announcement of the Durable Objects limited beta last month, the Workers platform continues to move toward providing storage solutions for applications that are globally deployed as easily as an application running in a single data center today.

What are the new free tier limits?

The free tier includes 100,000 read operations and 1,000 each of write, list and delete operations per day, resetting daily at UTC 00:00, with a maximum total storage size of 1 GB. Operations that exceed these limits will fail with an error.

Additional KV usage costs $0.50 per million read operations, $5.00 per million list, write and delete operations Continue reading

VMware preps network software to support distributed work, faster application delivery

VMware is extending its core virtual networking product family in an effort to help companies build infrastructure that can stand up to today's challenges, including the shift to remote work and the need to securely move applications across the distributed enterprise.The enhancements span VMware's Tanzu, NSX and SD-WAN products, which fall under the company's Virtual Cloud Network (VCN) architecture. VCN defines how customers can built and control network connectivity and security from the data center across the WAN to multi-cloud environments. The company's core networking software, VMware NSX, underpins the VCN architecture, which also includes analytics capabilities.To read this article in full, please click here

VMware preps network software to support distributed work, faster application delivery

VMware is extending its core virtual networking product family in an effort to help companies build infrastructure that can stand up to today's challenges, including the shift to remote work and the need to securely move applications across the distributed enterprise.The enhancements span VMware's Tanzu, NSX and SD-WAN products, which fall under the company's Virtual Cloud Network (VCN) architecture. VCN defines how customers can built and control network connectivity and security from the data center across the WAN to multi-cloud environments. The company's core networking software, VMware NSX, underpins the VCN architecture, which also includes analytics capabilities.To read this article in full, please click here

Tech Bytes: Protecting Remote Workers From VPN Risks With Zscaler (Sponsored)

Many companies use VPNs to protect their distributed workforce. But VPNs present their own security challenges, from compromised clients to insecure VPN servers. Sponsor Zscaler explains how its cloud-based security service can provide safe, high-performance remote access. Our guest is Lisa Lorenzin, Director, Transformation Strategy at Zscaler.

The post Tech Bytes: Protecting Remote Workers From VPN Risks With Zscaler (Sponsored) appeared first on Packet Pushers.

Upcoming Webinar: Network Troubleshooting

I’m teaching a webinar on troubleshooting theory on the 20th; register here. From the course description:

This training focuses on the half-split system of troubleshooting, which is widely used in the electronic and civil engineering domains. The importance of tracing the path of the signal, using models to put the system in context, and the use of a simple troubleshooting “loop” to focus on asking how, what, and why are added to the half-split method to create a complete theory of troubleshooting. Other concepts covered in this course are the difference between permanent and temporary fixes and a review of measuring reliability. The final third of the course contains several practical examples of working through problems to help in applying the theory covered in the first two sections to the real world.

Casual Dress Considered Harmful?

I remember a time long ago—but then again, everything seems like it was “long ago” to me—when I was flying out to see an operator in a financial district. Someone working with the account asked me what I normally wear… which is some sort of button down and black or grey pants in pretty much any situation. Well, I will put on a sport jacket if I’m teaching in some contexts, but still, the black/grey pants and some sort of button down are pretty much a “uniform” for me. The person working on the account asked me if I could please switch to ragged shorts, a t-shirt, and grow a pony tail because … the folks at the operator would never believe I was an engineer if I dressed to “formal.”

Now I’ve never thought of what I wear as “formal…” it’s just … what I wear. Context, however, is king.

In other situation, I saw a sales engineer go to a store and buy an entirely new outfit because he came to the company’s building wearing a suit and tie … The company in question deals in outdoor gear, and the location was in a small midwestern town, Continue reading

Apple Silicon M1 Chips and Docker

Revealed at Apple’s ‘One More Thing’ event on Nov 10th, Docker was excited to see new Macs feature Apple silicon and their M1 chip. At Docker we have been looking at the new hypervisor features and support that are required for Mac to continue to delight our millions of customers. We saw the first spotlight of these efforts at Apple WWDC in June, when Apple highlighted Docker Desktop on stage. Our goal at Docker is to provide the same great experience on the new Macs as we do today for our millions of users on Docker Desktop for Mac, and to make this transition as seamless as possible. 

Building the right experience for our customers means getting quite a few things right before we push a release. Although Apple has released Rosetta 2 to help move applications over to the new M1 chips, this does not get us all the way with Docker Desktop. Under the hood of Docker Desktop, we run a virtual machine, to achieve this on Apple’s new hardware we need to move onto Apple’s new hypervisor framework. We also need to do all the plumbing that provides the core experience of Docker Continue reading

Network Break 310: Kemp Acquires Flowmon; Networking Startup Isovalent Nabs $29 Million VC Bucks

This week's Network Break discusses a serious flaw in some Aruba switches, why Kemp acquired Flowmon, what makes a networking startup worth a $29 million investment, what Extreme Networks is up to with its AWS Outpost competitor, how Cisco is spinning a tough financial quarter, and more tech news.

The post Network Break 310: Kemp Acquires Flowmon; Networking Startup Isovalent Nabs $29 Million VC Bucks appeared first on Packet Pushers.

The Week in Internet News: A Change in U.S. Internet Policy?

Winds of change: U.S. President-elect Joe Biden will significantly change U.S. government policy focused on the Internet, Vox.com says. A Biden administration is likely to bring back net neutrality rules and push for policies that widen Internet access and make it more affordable. The Biden team may also provide more subsidies to lower-income people and open up more radio frequency bands for high-speed 5G networks.

Accessing growth: The growth of Indonesia’s digital economy depends on equal access to the Internet, but 12,000 villages across the country still lack access, Kompas.com reports. Indonesia’s Finance Minister Sri Mulyani Indrawati is pushing for digital infrastructure to be distributed throughout the country. The government has a 2021 budget of 30 trillion rupiahs ($2.1 billion USD) to develop information and communication technology infrastructure.

Lowering the Zoom: Video-conferencing service Zoom has settled a U.S. Federal Trade Commission complaint saying that it overstated its encryption protections for several years, TechCrunch says. “Zoom’s misleading claims gave users a false sense of security … especially for those who used the company’s platform to discuss sensitive topics such as health and financial information,” the agency said. Zoom has agreed to start a vulnerability management Continue reading

AMD At A Tipping Point With Instinct MI100 GPU Accelerators

It is hard enough to chase one competitor. Imagine how hard it is to chase two different ones in different but complementary markets while at the same time those two competitors are thinking about fighting each other in those two different markets and thus bringing even more intense competitive pressure on both fronts.

AMD At A Tipping Point With Instinct MI100 GPU Accelerators was written by Timothy Prickett Morgan at The Next Platform.

New Content: Graph Algorithms – Flows and Connectivity

Last week we enjoyed the second half of Graph Algorithms lecture by Rachel Traylor, this time focusing on flow- and connectivity challenges.

After an easy start defining flows and walking us through various maximum flow algorithms, Rachel explained circulations and saturating flows, switched into high gear with (supposedly painless) intro to linear programming and minimum cost flow problems, and concluded with dynamic flows and using flows to explore graph connectivity.

You’ll need Standard or Expert ipSpace.net subscription to watch the videos.